Newspaper Topis

            
             The Ohio state court system has accused a man for thinking horrible thoughts. How does the court have a right to sentence a man to prison for his private journal? Bob Herbert writes about Brian Dalton's sentencing in his Bakersfield Californian article called "Imaginary Perversion Becoming a Crime" (July 27, 2001). I do not think the court has a right to put a man in prison for writing his fantasies down in a private journal. .
             I think the court system has gone too far this time. What the courts are saying in this case is that they can tell us what we can and can't think. This sounds like a form of brain washing. It should not matter what a person writes down, or whatever a person fantasies about. Those personal things are what makes every person different. If everyone had the same thoughts, and imagined the same things this would be a dull world. .
             It should not matter what we think. The only thing that should matter is what we do. I can think about a lot of things I would never do. For instance robbing a bank. Kids play cops and robbers when they are young. Should they be arrested for conspiracy to commit a crime? Herbert quotes Raymond Vasvari who is the head of the American Civil Liberties Union. He says,"While the thoughts themselves (Dalton's thoughts) may have been disturbing it needs to be stressed that they were arrived at and recorded in this man's home for no one's consumption but his own." So theoretically this man was accused of a crime against himself, and there is no such crime in this country. In my eyes the court should have enrolled this man in some sort of counseling or psychiatric help. Just sending this man to prison will not help his condition any. Obviously this man needs close special attention.
             Politicians and Police do not want to be seen as advocates for child pornography, so they will not tolerate any instance dealing with the abuse or neglect of children.